Ohioans can lead way to protect climate

I attended a rally on Tuesday that was organized by the Sierra Club, one of several across Ohio this month intended to raise public awareness about the dire threats posed by climate change.

I attended a rally on Tuesday that was organized by the Sierra Club, one of several across Ohio this month intended to raise public awareness about the dire threats posed by climate change.

The consensus among climate scientists is virtually unanimous that global temperatures are rising dangerously as a result of carbon pollution from burning fossil fuels. President Barack Obama, reversing decades of inexcusable inaction and purposeful ignorance by our political leaders, has finally announced a plan to reduce carbon emissions and increase investments in clean and renewable energy. While not ideal and certainly flawed in many respects, the president's plan is a significant step forward. Importantly, it also demonstrated the effectiveness of the grassroots climate movement.

History is replete with examples of mass political movements overcoming powerful interests and seemingly insurmountable obstacles: abolitionists who fought against the evils of slavery and the women's, civil-rights, labor, environmental and anti-war movements, to name a few.

We obviously do not have the financial resources of the fossil-fuel industry, which has been permitted to pollute our atmosphere and cause potentially irreversible damage to our climate at no cost to its profits, but we are infinitely more powerful in numbers.

The public no longer can be complacent. We need urgent, comprehensive action to prevent the worst predictions of cataclysmic climate change. Ohioans, residents of a crucial battleground state in the wealthiest, most-powerful country in the world, are uniquely positioned to make a difference.

For the sake of present and future generations, I urge people to get involved.

KEVIN TRUITT Columbus

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